UC'S PAID LEAVES CALLED 'BETRAYAL' / REGENTS' EDICT IGNORED / 3 top managers were given lucrative furloughs in violation of university policy

Todd Wallack, Tanya Schevitz, Chronicle Staff Writers

Published
4:00 am PST, Friday, December 23, 2005

In 1994, the University of California�s governing Board of Regents voted to limit paid administrative leave for senior managers to a maximum of three months. The regents reaffirmed the limits three months ago. Even so, UC has granted extended leaves to several top officials recently. less

In 1994, the University of California�s governing Board of Regents voted to limit paid administrative leave for senior managers to a maximum of three months. The regents reaffirmed the limits three months ... more

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In 1994, the University of California�s governing Board of Regents voted to limit paid administrative leave for senior managers to a maximum of three months. The regents reaffirmed the limits three months ago. Even so, UC has granted extended leaves to several top officials recently. less

In 1994, the University of California�s governing Board of Regents voted to limit paid administrative leave for senior managers to a maximum of three months. The regents reaffirmed the limits three months ... more

UC'S PAID LEAVES CALLED 'BETRAYAL' / REGENTS' EDICT IGNORED / 3 top managers were given lucrative furloughs in violation of university policy

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More than a decade after promising to end the practice, the University of California has given several top administrators lengthy paid leaves when they stepped down.

In the past 13 months alone, at least three senior managers have received paid furloughs at their executive salaries before returning to teaching.

Former UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl received a 13 1/2-month leave at $315,600 a year. Former Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Directory Charles Shank is finishing a yearlong leave, during which he has earned $336,000. And Wednesday, UC said former Provost M.R.C. Greenwood had begun a 15-month leave with a $301,840 annual salary.

UC granted the leaves despite a policy approved by the university's governing Board of Regents in 1994 limiting paid administrative leaves for senior managers to a maximum of three months. The regents reaffirmed the limit in September.

"It's a betrayal," said former state Sen. Quentin Kopp, who helped push UC to declare an end to the paid leaves in 1994. "You can't depend on the probity of university leaders."

The charge is the latest in a string of accusations that UC hid perks and pay from the public and lawmakers. Both the state Assembly and Senate have scheduled hearings in the wake of stories in The Chronicle reporting that UC quietly paid hundreds of millions of dollars to employees in bonuses, relocation allowances, administrative stipends and other compensation.

The revelations come at a time when the university has said budget constraints have forced it to boost student fees, cut services, increase class sizes and freeze pay for thousands of lower-paid workers.

On Monday, The Chronicle reported that UC had signed a secret settlement agreement with a UC Davis administrator to give her a new job that pays $205,000 a year, but doesn't require her to do any work.

"This perpetual lack of transparency needs to end," said GOP state Sen. Abel Maldonado of Santa Maria (Santa Barbara County), vice chairman of the Senate Education Committee, which plans to hold a hearing looking into UC's pay practices early next year.

UC spokesman Paul Schwartz said the senior managers who received the leaves were tenured faculty members, who otherwise would have qualified for yearlong academic sabbaticals at their faculty pay.

Schwartz said the school had opted to give them administrative leaves instead, however, enabling them to continue to receive their executive salaries. Those salaries typically are twice as high as their faculty pay.

Berdahl, for instance, is receiving his chancellor salary of $315,600 a year for his leave, which started in November 2004 and is slated to run through Dec. 31. That's more than double his faculty salary of $130,900, which he will earn when he returns to work. Greenwood is earning nearly double her faculty salary of $163,800 while on leave.

"The practice of granting an administrative leave in lieu of foregone sabbatical leave has existed at UC for many years and is not uncommon in academia," Schwartz said.

UC also extended both Berdahl's and Greenwood's leaves beyond a year, the maximum for a traditional academic sabbatical. UC Berkeley spokeswoman Marie Felde said Berdahl's leave had been extended by a month and a half so he wouldn't have to return to the UC Berkeley faculty in the middle of a term.

The school said Greenwood's leave had been extended because former UC President Richard Atkinson had promised Greenwood she could take an additional three-month administrative leave whenever she wanted.

But UC supposedly banished the administrative perk more than a decade ago.

In April 1994, then-UC President Jack Peltason promised to stop giving yearlong paid vacations to departing chancellors and other top administrators, after state lawmakers expressed outrage about the practice.

Peltason said at the time that such leaves were justified to help administrators return to teaching or other service, either within UC or elsewhere. But to quell the criticism, Peltason promised to eliminate leaves of more than three months for chancellors and other top administrators. He said he would grant the shorter leaves only in unusual circumstances.

He also said he had decided to give up the yearlong paid leave that he had been promised.

"Consensus no longer exists, either within the university community or among the public, to support such leaves," Peltason said then.

A month later, the regents approved a policy banning paid administrative leaves of more than three months for chancellors, vice presidents and lab directors, although UC said managers who were also tenured professors could still qualify for sabbaticals at their faculty pay. The regents affirmed the policy as recently as three months ago, at their meeting in September.

In addition, a separate rule, adopted in 1993, requires the regents to approve any paid leaves to the president, chancellors and other top administrators.

There is no indication that regents approved the leaves for Berdahl, Shank or Greenwood.

"Nothing ever changes at the University of California," said former Regent Ward Connerly, who supported Peltason's effort to limit the administrative leaves. "It just goes back in hiding for a little bit and comes back at you in a different form."

UC formally revived the practice of awarding lengthy administrative leaves in September 2003. That was when Atkinson changed school policy to let managers earn administrative leaves -- at their higher salaries -- in lieu of an academic sabbatical.

Then-Provost C. Judson King told a regents committee in July 2003 that the new academic policy would not mean any major changes, because most administrators were already taking sabbaticals at their administrative pay "by an exception to policy."

"The proposed change would regularize this practice and would treat all faculty administrators equitably," King said, according to the minutes of the meeting.

UC declined at the time to specify who had received the leaves at their executive salaries, saying the information was scattered among the various campuses. And Schwartz said this month he didn't have a list of chancellors and other senior managers who have received administrative leaves in lieu of sabbaticals.

When UC administrators changed the sabbatical policy in 2003, there was no mention of the fact that the practice seemed to conflict with Peltason's promise -- and the regents' own policy -- to ban paid administrative leaves for top executives. Indeed, several regents, including John Moores, said they were unaware of the changes made in 1994 to end the leaves. And no one brought it up at the committee meeting, records show.

"The regents do not have staff to independently advise them on issues or on policies, and thus are entirely depending on UC's Office of the President for most information," said Moores, who was the board's chairman in 2003. "Perhaps this should change."

Former UC presidents Peltason and Atkinson could not be reached for comment. But King, the former provost, said he wasn't aware of either the regents' policy or Peltason's move to ban the leaves.

"I believed we were generating a policy where there wasn't one," said King, who is now director of the Center for Studies in Higher Education at UC Berkeley.

Ellen Switkes, a UC assistant vice president, said she didn't think the paid leaves technically violated the regents' ban on leaves for top administrators, because she said the recipients gave up their executive titles as soon as they stepped down to begin the leaves.

"That may not have been the regental intent," Switkes said. "But that is what the policy says."

Switkes said she also recalled that Peltason and the regents had adopted the policy after concerns were raised about chancellors taking yearlong leaves immediately after resigning. "It may not be an unreasonable conclusion to say that is what the regents were thinking of," she said.

Schwartz, the UC spokesman, said the university would look into the issue later, as part of a broad effort to review compensation.

It's not entirely clear how all the administrators spend their paid leaves.

Although UC requires faculty members to submit a detailed research proposal to apply for a sabbatical, there doesn't appear to be any formal application process to obtain an administrative leave. Berdahl, the former chancellor, said he thought the process was "relatively automatic." And Schwartz likened it to "vacation time that the employee is due."

UC declined to provide any documents related to Shank's leave. And UC Berkeley said it couldn't locate any paperwork on Berdahl's leave, other than a handwritten memo noting when his leave would begin.

But Berdahl, a professor of history and public policy, said he had been splitting his time between Berkeley and Portland, preparing to return to teaching in January. Berdahl ticked off several articles he has written, including a paper on German reunification for a law journal.

"I've been doing quite a lot of reading, research and writing," Berdahl said.

Greenwood, who resigned as provost Nov. 4, is working on a book about her experiences in higher education and government, according to a spokesman. She also plans to write articles, give lectures and spend time assisting the National Academies, an independent scientific advisory group.

After her 15-month leave ends in February 2007, she plans to return to teaching at UC Davis as a professor of nutrition and internal medicine.

On Wednesday, UC investigators said Greenwood had violated conflict-of-interest rules by helping to create a management job for a friend with whom she owned real estate. The university said it didn't plan to take any disciplinary action because she had already resigned as provost, the UC system's No. 2 job.

Shank began a yearlong leave Jan. 1 after stepping down as director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Shank, who could not be reached for comment, is expected to return to the UC Berkeley faculty in 2006, though UC declined to say how much he will earn then.

UC

pay and perks: the story so far

Since November, The Chronicle has published a series of stories about hidden pay and perks at the University of California, including:

-- Employees get $871 million in hidden compensation

-- One UC Davis executive gets $205,000 a year to do nothing

-- State lawmakers call for hearings on UC pay practices

-- UC's provost resigns amid hiring probe

-- UC adds hundreds of high-paid jobs over two years

To read the stories, go to sfgate.com and enter "UC Pay" in the search box. You can also search an online database of more than 2,700 UC employees who earned more than $200,000 in the last fiscal year.

Who got what

In 1994, the University of California's governing Board of Regents voted to limit paid administrative leave for senior managers to a maximum of three months. The regents reaffirmed the limits three months ago. Even so, UC has granted extended leaves to several top officials recently.

Robert Berdahl

former UC Berkeley chancellor

Start of leave: Nov. 16, 2004

Length: 13 1/2 months

Annual pay: $315,600

Charles Shank

former director, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Start of leave: Jan. 1, 2005

Length: 12 months

Annual pay: $336,000

M.R.C. Greenwood

former UC provost and senior vice president

Start of leave: November 2005

Length: 15 months

Annual pay: $301,840

How UC's policy on paid leaves evolved

In 1994, the University of California banned paid leaves of more than three months for top administrators. An earlier policy already required the regents to approve such leaves. Excerpts include:

"University of California President Jack W. Peltason announced Wednesday that he is eliminating extended paid leaves for chancellors and other senior administrators effective immediately. Peltason said he decided to immediately discontinue all extended executive leaves because there is no longer a consensus on granting them and because it is in the best interests of the university."

-- University of California news release, April 6, 1994

"The board endorses as regental policy the presidential practice announced on April 6, 1994, that no extended paid administrative leaves will be approved for chancellors, vice presidents or laboratory directors."

-- Regents policy adopted May 20, 1994; revised Sept. 22, 2005

"Any paid leave of absence for the president ... shall be approved by the regents."

-- Current regents policy, adopted Nov. 19, 1993

"Paid leaves of absence that exceed 90 days for chancellors, laboratory directors, senior vice presidents and vice presidents shall be subject to approval by the board upon recommendation of the president of the university."